Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:06:43 -0600
From: Jun Akiyama
Subject: Aikido-L Seminar Review [1/5]
Friday
The weather looked like it would hold early in the week before the
Seminar with the forecasts showing nothing but sunny days ahead, but
mountain weather is as unpredictable, as they say, as a woman's heart.
By late Thursday, it was evident that we would get some precipitation
and perhaps even some snow. By the time the sun rose on Friday
morning, we had about an inch of snow on the ground with small flakes
coming down. Although the residents in Boulder could hardly call it
"real snow," it was white and cold outside, nonetheless.
There were already a handful of people in Boulder by the time the snow
came down. Tarik Ghbeish from Santa Cruz had been staying at the dojo
with his girlfriend Kristen since the Saturday prior to the Seminar
for sightseeing, hiking, and other outdoor activities. James Baldwin
had come all the way here from England (thus receiving the "Most Miles
Travelled for the Aikido-L Seminar" award this year) and had been
staying at the nearby youth hostel.
I took the day off of work on Friday so that I could take care of
"last minute business" which basically really consisted of my being
able to sleep in really late and pick up a few things for the Seminar
like the "Emergen-C" packets that one could put into water for an
added boost in vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. By then, I had
already picked up the box of T-shirts, put in a reservation for the
Saturday night party, and bought six dozen bottles of water.
I drove up to the dojo to find Craig Hocker standing in front of the
dojo looking a bit cold despite wearing his only pair of long pants
that he brought. "I brought two pairs of shorts, though," he said.
As I stood there in the cold talking to Craig in front of the dojo,
Philip Akin, Scott Crawford, and Sean Fogarty walk up. As I start
shaking their hands, Craig's phone rings and he starts talking to
someone. To get out of the cold for a minute, we go into Bu Jin
Design which is situated next door to Boulder Aikikai and introduce
everyone to Hiroshi Ikeda sensei who, in addition to being the chief
instructor of Boulder Aikikai, happens to be the owner of Bu Jin
Design. As Sean buys himself a pair of dogi pants from Ikeda sensei,
the mysterious people who were on the phone with Craig walk in the
door -- Mike Hacker and John Costello who had just driven up from
Arizona.
I let them all into the dojo to take a look at the facilities and from
upstairs comes down Monica Norman and Paula Hernandez who had driven
here from Indianapolis (with Paula hitching a ride from Kansas) with
Robert Hough. Monica and Paula were staying in the dojo for the
weekend and was staking out their claim to the futon upstairs. At
about this time, Philip stated that he was starting to get grumpy
because he was so hungry so I pointed them down the road to Chez Thuy,
the local Vietnamese restaurant. I watched the big gaggle of hungry
aikidoka before I too headed home to eat lunch and get some other
things done.
The regular evening classes came quickly after that and some of the
brave individuals who wanted to more quickly become acclimated to the
altitude (~5360 feet) joined in the classes. Ikeda sensei taught the
second class and I got to work with some of the List members in his
class. It looked like everyone survived the class just fine despite
their jet lag, travel tiredness, and the altitude. After the class,
Ikeda sensei gave me a rolled up present which turned out to be a
plastic banner that proclaimed, "Welcome to the Aikido-L Seminar" with
AikiWeb's URL underneath. We hung the sign up over the main dojo desk
to help welcome all of the people to the Seminar.
Afterwards, we took a group out to the local Ethiopian restaurant
where Tarik found out that even if he thought he wasn't all that
hungry that he could still be extremely hungry once he started. He
was still nibbling on the bread used to scoop up the rest of the food
(especially the "special" mushrooms!) when I finished eating...
I went home after that, took a shower, and went to sleep with
excitement in my mind for the coming weekend.
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